Mail Opinion: Unite and fight the real enemy - Scottish Daily Record

IT was, of course, only a matter of time before big Bob Crow lumbered on from stage left.

The boss of the RMT yesterday hoved into view to insist the crisis engulfing Labour and the party's relationship with the trade unions was, in fact, an opportunity.

An opportunity to divorce the unions from Labour and launch a proper left-wing party that people power will propel into Downing Street.

Really, Bob? Do you think so?

He really should shut up. So should Len McCluskey, his oppo at Unite, because the more they talk the more people – including their members – realise just how selfish, myopic and limited they really are.

Cut Labour's ties with the trade unions? Deliberately distance the people's party from working people? Why on earth would you want to?

Their financial support should mean the unions' voice – a voice that really should be that of ordinary working men and women – is heard and noted at the highest levels in Labour.

It is – but it does not give them the right to steal seats, to shoo-in their placemen and placewomen through fair means or foul. But Unite were called on their smash and grab in Falkirk and Labour and the unions need to take a breath now before doing anything stupid. Or stupider.

Because look who is pointing the finger? Look at the ministers and the lackeys who are making all the noise?

Millionaires who have never worked a day in a real job, never worked for a wage needed to feed their children.

David Cameron and his whey-faced cronies from a party still funded by the trading floor spivs and short-sellers, the bonus-hungry funny-money men who drove us to the cliff of worldwide recession. And then put their foot down.

A party who have done their level best to strip away the rights of every working man and woman in the country.

Who have encouraged companies to turn full-time jobs into part-time contracts without pensions, holidays, and sick pay.

Who have stripped away job security and whittled away the power of the unions to such an extent that hundreds of thousands of workers now endure the obscenity of "zero-hour contracts" when staff are simply on call, with no guarantee of work or wages.

Who have created a whole new class, the precariat, living day to day, in fear, uncertainty and unpredictability. If they are in jobs, they do not know if they will be tomorrow. If they are on benefits, they do not know if they will be allowed to claim tomorrow.

Who take money from the poorest and strip rights from the lowest-paid while turning a blind eye to the billions being shovelled off-shore by the stinking rich and multinationals.

And Labour and the unions are meant to take lessons in morality from this bunch?

No, Ed Miliband and the unions need to quickly work out who their friends are.

And who the enemy is.